I happen to agree, outside of tethering or wireless broadband, I see little difference on superfast speeds on a mobile device. Honestly what is 20mbs going to do for you that 3 or 4 won't? Yeah, nice to have, but still.

Also, don't count on TMO not going into some agreement with AT&T and its developing LTE? It actually works for both companies. Higher revenue stream for AT&T, and TMO gets LTE. Also don't count on 1700 going away for AT&T, pentaband phones are going to become more and more common, true hspa+ roaming on both carriers means better service for the customers. To be honest I was somewhat for the merger but did have some reservations on loss of competition as well as loss of jobs that would have occurred.

the HSPA+ 42 and LTE match closely in real world verizon vs tmobile, of course coverage is highly YMMV. LTE is not 4G, LTE-Advanced and technology that goes above 100Mbps+ is what the international standards organization considers real 4G

LTE phones aren't only more costly, the chip is so new it drains batteries quick - like what's happening with Sprint phones with WiMax.

The BestBuy rep I talked to last week while upgrading a mobile hotspot to LTE said he had to keep his LTE feature off because it drained the battery so fast! So why would I pay for an LTE phone to keep LTE off?!

Tmobile also probably has spectrum for LTE, but it would mean turning off 2G and refarming that spectrum

HSPA+ does not drain the battery like LTE does, and T-mobile can still double their network speed again to 84 Mbps. When they do that, 'LTE' wont really mattery as much. I would take the slightly slower speed and much bettery battery life.